Entomology
by JDavin
Summary: Megan Gwynn, codename Pixie, meets Dark Beast, assuming he is her professor, Dr. McCoy. Rated M for some violence and gore.


Megan Gwynn's eyes fluttered open and she groaned slightly under the fluorescent lights. Her head ached and her hair was sticky against her face. She whined and tried to push herself up, but her sides hurt and her wings were pinched between her body and the hard, cold floor. There were many more noises of complaint as she struggled to turn over without further damaging the delicate limbs on her back.

A high-pitched electric sound caught her attention, and the young girl suddenly noticed all of the unusual, rusty contraptions surrounding her in the dimly lit room. The brightest lights all pointed to one examination table across from where Megan crouched on the floor. On top of the table was the gray, lifeless body of a man missing the back of his head. He had been very short, and rather frail. Megan thought she could recognize him as one of the Morlocks, but she and her classmates had encountered them so infrequently, it was difficult to tell.

And there, hunched over the man's shattered skull, holding a small surgical drill in his huge hand, was a furry, blue, apelike man. Relief momentarily poured through the girl's muscles as she recognized her teacher, but it was short lived. Instead of the usual clean, white lab coat, he wore a thick apron over shorts and a bare chest. The apron was covered in blood and some gooey stuff that Megan suspected were pieces of brain. So were his hands.

_He's not even wearing gloves…_

"Doctor McCoy?" her voice was small and shaky. The drilling continued, and he didn't respond, or even look up. Pulling herself up against a wall, she tried to stand, peeling the front ends of her hair from her forehead where they stuck in the dried blood. The cut above her eye, where the anti-mutant protester had hit her with a rock before she passed out, had stopped bleeding on its own, but it wasn't cleaned, bandaged, or… anything. Had he really brought her here and dropped her without even attempting to tend her wounds?

"Doctor McCoy?" she tried again, "What are you doing?"

"Helping." His voice was as low and calm as ever, but it lacked that comforting warmth that Megan had grown accustomed to when interacting with the furry blue X-Man.

"Helping?" she repeated.

"Yeah." The drill apparently caught on something, because a gush of blood splattered on the wide apron he was wearing.

"This… this isn't your lab, is it?"

"It is for now." His vague answers were making her increasingly uncomfortable. Why wouldn't he tell her what was going on? Why didn't he ask her if she was alright? He must see that she was in pain. Must smell how frightened this room was making her.

Slowly, Megan inched her way over to the door at the doctor's right. He still didn't look up, let alone make any move to stop her. There wouldn't have been a point, she learned, because as soon as she reached the door she found the knob wouldn't turn.

"Why's this door locked?" she asked, spinning around and letting her voice get higher and louder than necessary.

"That's not the way out, Megan," her name sounded wrong in his voice. Looking at him she could see that he was still watching his own work while simultaneously keeping track of her using his other feral senses of hearing and smell. And he was _smiling._ He thought this was funny! "That's storage. I keep dangerous experiments in there that I don't want little girls to see." Putting the drill to the side, he began using his uncovered fingers to push around the insides of the man's face.

"Beast," she fell back into using his codename out of habit. Would he be mad? "Beast, are you okay? I'm scared. What's happening?"

"Don't be scared," he chuckled a little, as if she were being overdramatic, silly child that she was, "I'm fine. Just go sit down like a good girl, and wait your turn."

"…my turn?" she looked down at the mangled corpse on the table and felt a little faint. "Are you… going to hurt me?"

"No, no. Not in the long run. I'm going to _help_ you. You're far too original to break. Speaking of which, those are some beautiful, unique eyes you have there, Megan. Tell me, can you see in the dark?"

"No…"

"Would you like to? Because this young gentleman could, and I believe his skull is about the same size as yours." He yanked upwards, and there was a sickening _–snap-_ as Dr. McCoy held up a mutant's eyeball with long, stringy veins still dangling below it.

She was running.

There was another door on the opposite side of the room, and though she crossed directly through his area of reach, he still made no attempt to grab her. This time the knob turned (_Thank you, God_), and she threw the door open and ran… into a closet.

Slamming the door in frustration, she could hear the doctor tsking behind her.

"Slow down," he said softly, "Or you're going to break something."

Frantically she looked around for any other exit. Something was wrong with Beast, and the sooner she found one of the other X-Men to help him, the better. In a nearby corner there was a ladder leading up to a metal mesh landing, and at the end of that landing… a window! Instantly she began climbing, her limbs already bruised and tired after the fight from which Dr. McCoy had _supposedly_ rescued her. The window was very high, but it looked like it was street-level, which meant she must be in a basement somewhere.

_Good, I won't have to jump off any roofs to get out of this._

When she finally reached the landing, Megan bolted for the window, feeling the surface quake slightly beneath her sneakers. But when she reached the window she found it mostly blocked by a large, heavy bookcase packed with glass test tubes, bottles, and beakers. She glared down at the Beast where he still stood near the mutant corpse.

"Let me out of here right now, or I'll dust you!" It was her last resort, but she was scared enough to use it.

"Good idea," he replied, "Make the three hundred fifty pound homicidal geneticist have hallucinations within this locked room. _Then_ you'll be safe."

He had a point, and it made her want to cry. Fine, she wouldn't dust him, but she _would_ get through this window! Using both hands, one foot, and all her remaining strength, Megan pulled at the side of the bookshelf until it came crashing down. Surely the sound of all that shattering glass would alert someone on the street that something was up?

The way to the window was now clear, but Megan barely had time to reach her hand up towards the latch before her entire forearm was wrapped in an enormous blue fist and she was lifted effortlessly off her feet.

_Oh yeah, I forgot how far he could jump._

Without batting an eye, Beast snapped her wrist, holding her up higher to glare as she dangled and howled.

"You see? I told you, you'd break something."

Megan had never broken a bone before. She'd never even had a sprain, which she heard were worse. But at the moment, this was the most painful thing she had ever experienced. She screamed and sobbed and kicked at him so he'd let her go. Escape was far from her mind. Now all she wanted was to collapse into a ball and cradle her poor wrist, but she couldn't even do that as she hung in the grip of this… monster. This Beast who was supposed to be her friend.

Dr. McCoy wrapped his other arm tightly around her torso, being strangely careful not to damage her wings as he leapt from the landing to the ground twenty feet below.

"If you're going to insist on throwing tantrums instead of staying where you're told, I'll just have to preserve you like any other insect."

Very gently, he spread the colorful, delicate membranes out as far and as wide as they could go. Then, just as carefully, the Dark Beast began pinning her wings to the wall with long, thin nails.


End file.
